Objections to the limited Impact Assessment proposed by the NWMO.

No completed, operational DGR exists anywhere in the world, so we are only talking about the “theoretical safety” of DGRs.  We are dealing with probabilities and not certainties.  This is not sufficient for a project with the level of long-term, generational risk that is being proposed.

The process of choosing a site has been deeply disturbing with vast amounts of money held out to possible hosts, and mayors throughout NWO, to buy support and make out as if the project is all about supporting communities.  It is not.  It is about solving a problem for the nuclear industry and using rate payer-generated dollars as a bottomless bank account, without any say from ratepayers themselves, to bribe so-called “hosts.”  If a project is a good idea, does it take millions in “gifts” to gain support?  

Further, the failure to assess the safety and effects of transporting ca 5.9 million used nuclear fuel bundles across thousands of kilometers of highways daily, over a 50-year period, points to an attempt to dismiss public concerns by pretending that transportation risks don’t exist.  This attempt to skip over assessing transportation risks suggests, again, that the NWMO will use any means to get what it wants, regardless of the costs to people today and the children of the future.

The Trans-Canada Highway does not meet the safety standards needed for the volume and type of traffic using these highways today.  Most of it has not been four-laned; there are no passing lanes for long stretches and no rest stops.  Serious accidents and far too many deaths have become a tragic feature of life for those living along highways 11 & 17.    

Thousands of trucks pass through daily driven by drivers who have not been adequately trained, often in trucks that are not fit to be on the road.  But even if these issues were addressed (and, so far, the Ontario government has shown no interest in addressing these concerns), until the highways are four-laned (or 2+1 lanes are in place), there will be no way for people to pass these daily transports of nuclear waste.  What happens then when truck drivers are pushed to beat the clock and can’t navigate their way past the daily nuclear waste cavalcades?  And what about the people who use our highways to get to medical appointments, buy groceries, and take their kids to school?  Are they all dodging their way around these cavalcades?  The highways are already closed for hundreds of hours due to weather, poor snow clearing, and accidents.  They are not fit for the purpose proposed by the NWMO.

Then there is the failure to assess emergency preparedness capacity and to assess the potential impacts on all the communities along the route – most of whom have never been consulted.

The duty to consult with First Nations along the route is also being ignored, despite our legal commitments under UNDRIP.

Even if people could trust the safety of these bundles carrying the most dangerous form of nuclear waste, the added pollution alone, and damage to the roads themselves from these thousands of trips along our highways, needs to be measured and compared to the cost of leaving the waste where it is currently, close to where it is produced.

High-level radioactive waste is highly toxic and dangerous. Accidental exposure can cause gene mutations, cancer and other irreparable health consequences to humans, and have long-lasting harmful effects on biodiversity and ecosystem health.  The earth is a living system that is constantly changing.  Is science really so advanced we can guarantee there will never be a geological rupture that releases any of this waste to the air, water, or soil?  Again, the premise of the NWMO is that, on the basis of probabilities, the transportation of nuclear waste over long distances, and the burial of that waste in a DGR, only to be monitored for 100 years, is that it will be “safe.”  But probabilities are not guarantees.  They only represent a numeric likelihood.

Given the repeated failure of governments to protect citizens from industrial pollution, particularly citizens living in First Nations continually subjected to environmental racism, why should anyone believe that this project will be any different?  This project is upstream from Grassy Narrows – a community that Ontario and Canada have left to suffer from mercury pollution for generations, always pretending that there is “nothing to see here”.  Or is it that the people in these communities are considered acceptable casualties?

Frankly, the risks to the town of Ignace are minimal but the risks to communities downstream are significantly greater and no amount of money to Ignace will change the risk to downstream communities.

In conclusion, we need to see a full federal impact assessment of the DGR that includes: the safety of the waste itself and the logic of transporting it over vast distances; the transportation system itself; the security system to prevent these regular shipments from becoming targets of hostile actors; the efficacy of an emergency preparedness system designed for accidents containing nuclear waste; support from all communities, including First Nations communities, along the transportation route; an investigation into the use of financial incentives to buy support from a small number of people influencing life for people across the province for centuries to come.